Brave Enough To Be Bliss

The prior week while I was in my car going to pick up a few groceries, I was thinking about it again and really tried hard to figure out what they all had in common. I don’t like it when I can’t figure something out and this had been hanging out there for more than four years. The instructions that had been bothering me were these…

Do you notice any patterns among the traits of these five people? Are there key words that stand out to you as you review your descriptions of why you admire them? Is there a theme that emerges as you think of these five people you admire?

The people you admire are mirrors to your soul. Celebrate these parts of yourself that are worthy of admiration. See that you already have the things you seek. You are already on the path by setting your sights on these five people. You can decide to continue toward becoming what they have - the thing that made you write their name down, the feeling you get when you think about them, the thing they've done that you long to do. You are on your way to it too. It was perplexing to me because the individuals I had written about were vastly different. Their personalities, their backgrounds, their interests, the type of relationship I had with them, their leadership styles, their personalities, everything really. The only exception was Ginger, because I saw her style, approach, and values much more in line with mine, but the other four were completely unrelated to me or each other. I just didn’t see anything common about them. I had found my voice with each of them and been brave enough to stand up for myself, tell them all my thoughts and feelings, hold nothing back even when I feared it was something they wouldn’t want to hear or would make them mad enough to leave me. I wasn’t hurtful with my words, but I was honest , just as they had always been with me. I was willing to lovingly let each of them go if that’s how it had to be in order to protect myself and my integrity. I loved them, but I had to love myself as much in order to have a relationship…or not. It would be their choice if they left, and I would accept it, but I would not deny that my love for them remained even if the relationship didn’t. That felt healthy and loving for me, and I was the only one I could control. The instructions had said four years earlier I was on my way, so that seemed like quite an extended journey. But when all this came together for me the timeframe didn’t matter, all that mattered was that I had figured it out. Because then I knew it was real. I didn’t have any of these people in my life anymore like I had, but I wasn’t alone at all. I had found myself and I no longer despised who I was. I was simply loving the human being I was. The human being who had emerged from the shadows having been too scared previously to come into the light. That human being was one I could respect and admire and be proud of, and I didn’t need anyone else to approve of or appreciate or even love me. Of course it would be nice, but I didn’t need it. I didn’t need anyone to validate who I was anymore. I wasn’t counting on them to make me feel good about myself. I felt good about myself. But not in a bitter way toward them at all, only with appreciation for what they had been to me. Grateful to each of them for the lessons they taught, the love they gave, the joy they brought. They were gifts to me at that time, but regardless of the reason, the time for a relationship with them had passed and that was OK. I could look back on all the good times and feel only love in my heart for each of them and what they had given me at those times that helped me survive. At the next safe place to pull off the road, I wrote this. There are times, for unknown human reasons, when God intercedes like the night I wanted to kill myself. He wanted me to stay alive perhaps long enough to write this book and perhaps for something else I don’t even know about, but for some reason, in His wisdom, H e did. It doesn’t seem fair at all when so many other people don’t have that intervention, and I don’t like it, and I can’t explain it. But I have to trust in a wisdom beyond my understanding that there is a reason. Maybe those people couldn’t have continued, and it would have only been delaying their death and extending their pain, and having felt that type of pain, I don’t wish that for them. So maybe it was mercy for those individuals, not lack of care, even though for those they left behind on this earth it was nothing but pain. Maybe He knew that while I wanted to die, I would be obedient, even if only from fear to stay alive long enough for Him to send out this army of people who helped keep me alive through an even harder time After hearing that song, it hit me…hard. Each of them had rescued me in some way. And then I realized, that’s what I had finally done for myself. I had rescued myself.

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